Strawberries from Boone Hill Farm

Well I sure hope so! There is nothing as sweet and tasty as a fresh farm strawberry.  Farm strawberries are generally slightly smaller than the ones that are in the grocery store, they are also red all the way through as you can see in the photo of the strawberries I cut this morning (ever notice that when you cut into a store strawberry the inside is white and the berry is tart?).  Farm strawberries actually smell like the artificial strawberry smell in candy!  I’m crazy about them, and really will only eat them when in season because the ones imported from California out of season don’t begin to compare.  I learned something last year when I went to San Francisco in April, California farm strawberries aren’t that much bigger than ours, so I have no idea how they are cross germinating to get those huge tasteless ones that Godiva and Stew Leonards dip in chocolate.  The family just got back from our annual trip to South Carolina to visit relatives and I’ve eaten 5 quarts of Charleston strawberries in the last 10 days.  According  to the farmers at the Charleston Farmers Market and at Boone Hill Farm store they are at the end of the strawberry season in Charleston, which is very early (usually the season doesn’t really get into swing until the second week of April).  One lady exclaimed that strawberries were available locally since January!  Like New York, South Carolina had an extremely warm winter so their growing season is in full swing (yes I’ve already had summer corn last week!).  For those of you who venture to the NYC Greenmarkets (which I frequent until Catskill Maison Bed and Breakfast is open for business next weekend and I can get them from Bohringer Farm or Eger Bros Farm), you will see that local lettuce has been available since the last weekend of March and asparagus has been available for the past 3 weeks!  I would anticipate that strawberries are not far behind.  I’m so excited about strawberry season, for us in the Northeast it’s usually in season from about Memorial Day (on a good year) until 4th of July and then back again in early September.  It will be interesting to see if they are available this weekend at the market or if the recent cool weather has slowed the season a bit.  Regardless, I will hedge a bet that we will be able to serve strawberry french toast to guests this Memorial Day weekend!!!!

The town of Windham endured major damage along Main Street, but I am happy to report that recovery efforts are coming along very well!  The road is now fine and completely open for travel, all roads in Windham are actually open for car/truck traffic now which is great!  You can still see the force of the Batavia Kill as it has left creek damage and some tree damage alongside the creek on Main Street.

Many of the businesses which were affected will be open for business shortly or are already open for business now, which will allow us to have a great foliage season after all! I’m listing information here of restaurants/cafes/stores below:

Alpine Village (including Chalet Fondue, the Mobil and Windham Mountain Outfitters), Vesuvio’s Restaurant, Rockin Mexicana, the Windham Winery, Daly’s Coffee Shop, Toderos Deli/Salumeria, Post Office, Valero convenience store/gas station, Windham Hardware Store, Christmans Golf Course and Chicken Run are all currently open.

GNH Lumber plans to open on the 19th of September

The Brewery and Catskill Mountain Country Store plan to open on September 24th

Bistro Brie and Bordeaux hopes to be open by the beginning of October

I will get information on Messina’s restaurant as well as Mill Rock ASAP.

Another update will follow as warranted

Prattsville, is in a different situation altogether.  I have not been to Prattsville as of yet, but in speaking to those who got a view first hand, it’s a disaster.  Nothing in downtown Prattsville seems to be recoverable, people have completely lost their homes and businesses.   For those who wish to donate to the Greene County disaster fund and to Prattsville specifically this is the  link to Greene Cty Government .  More information to come!

I’m not going to embellish upon the news reports on this blog post or any other updates going forward…I’m only going to give my personal take on what’s going on from those that are dealing with the nightmare going on in Windham right now. 

We had guests at our B&B this past weekend; one couple (thankfully) cancelled their reservation, another left on Saturday morning and cut their trip early.  I advised the third couple to head back to New York City on Saturday as well, but they decided to stay an extra night thinking that Windham would be a better option for them than Greenpoint Brooklyn (in Bloomberg’s infamous zone “A” of evacuation in NYC) because they were going to be evacuated.  What happened over the next 24 hours is almost inexplicable.  Liz, our Innkeeper (and one of my dearest friends) has been working nonstop and tending to many wonderful guests for most of this summer thanks to the Verizon strike, and this past weekend was to be her last weekend before she got a “reprieve” by Hector and I coming up to the B&B to work.  I spoke to Liz on Saturday and told her to fill up the bath tub, get an extra flash light and buy non perishable foods “just in case” because we lose electricity regularly in the Mountains, and quite frankly that’s what I expected…a power failure of a day or two at the most, but not much more than that.

On Sunday morning at 8:30 Liz called me in Riverdale from the land line phone at the Bed and Breakfast and told me that it was pouring and windy and the Batavia Kill across the road was rising and beginning to flood the farmland across from us.  I asked her if the guests left yet and she said they were still upstairs.  Grateful that the power was still on I asked her about breakfast.  She decided not to make our normal 3 course breakfast because the power had been going out intermittently, I told her to put on another pot of Coffee just in case and to let me know when the guests leave she could lock up and go home.  At 9:15 I got a text stating that the power went out.  The news after that was right out of a movie.  The water came to the street across the road from us with only the street and the slope that our house stands on protecting us.  Emergency services dropped off an elderly man, another man and his 2 daughters and dog at our door because the homes on the other side of the road were flooded and they needed to be rescued and brought to a place on higher ground.  I had Liz give them some coffee and figured they would be with us for a couple of hours until the rain stopped and the water receded.  I was so naive and so wrong.

Morning turned into afternoon and Liz and I were in contact over the cell phone…our house was safe and dry and everyone had food and water and could use the facilities.  She said it was like “camp” as our guests and neighbors played Monopoly and Life in our Library…Liz, never breaking a sweat made sure everyone was as comfortable as possible and was the perfect hostess, even though she was texting me telling me that she was freaking out.  Afternoon turned into evening and it dawned on me that we would have to shelter our neighbors for the night.  I advised Liz to set up some rooms so that our neighbors could sleep for the night and my thoughts turned to the two little girls who were rescued by a bucket truck, and the trauma that they must be going through.  Liz ventured into town and reported that our partner Bed and Breakfast Country Suite (on the flooded side of the road) was still standing though their barn/antique/consignment shop was surrounded by water…the trailer park seemed to be still standing as well and Ashland looked fine, however Windham was a different story.  She wasn’t allowed past the entrance to South Street but she couldn’t drive down South Street either because there was a huge crater in the road.  I had seen the footage of our school buses being swept away down Main Street, and the newly refurbished bridge by Valero gas station getting hit by a house and caving in.  I knew in my heart things were bad.

Monday morning with the sun up our guests finally were able to head back to the city, the elderly man was able to get back into his home and the family into theirs.  Liz was able to really assess the damage to our property which I’m relieved to say there is NO DAMAGE!!!!!  God seriously looked out for us because our landscaping is in almost perfect condition (minus a few small branches that fell onto the lawn), and we didn’t have any structural damage or flooding.  The only thing we have to deal with is the lack of power and trying to save our food.  Some of our friends and neighbors and fellow business owners didn’t get so lucky.  Liz’s house didn’t suffer any damage either, her family is safe and her vegetables even made it in her garden.  The backyard of her house has a new “landscape” but other than that she is okay.

Here is what I know (as of this morning) from Liz and Antonia (the owner of the Windham Spa)…Prattsville is completely washed out and isolated, the bridges have been washed out and nobody can get in or out, it’s a similar situation in Maplecrest as the bridge to Maplecrest is washed out as well and Maplecrest is completely under water.  Windham’s South Street has a crater in the right lane but the left lane is fine so it’s open from end to end, therefore you can take 23 E from Ashland to South Street and make a left onto 296 and continue east on 23.  The center of town on Main Street (rt 23) is closed and a mess and suffered the most damage.  There seems to be rubble and small damage to Windham Mountain, the Alpine village (where Chalet Fondue and Albergo B&B are) is fine.  Christmans Windham House and Messinas seem to be okay minus small flooding issues.  The grounds of the Catskill Mountain Country Store are destroyed, the Windham Spa is destroyed as well the structure is still there but the flood damage is immense, but thank God Antonia and her family are safe.  Liz can’t get through Main Street so I don’t know all of the damage but she said that propane tanks and debris and cars are littering the sides of the street from what she can see.  Liz got to Cairo yesterday (Windham thank goodness isn’t isolated and Cairo has power) and picked up ice so that our food will stay fresh until the power comes back on (hopefully by tomorrow).  But it’s going to be a long and tough recovery.  I’m confident that our town will bounce back and be better than ever before but right now everyone is just stunned and trying to pick up the pieces.  Windham needs tourism more than ever after this disaster.  Many in our town will temporarily (and some permanently) be out of work.  I will post in a couple of days to speak of any new developments, but as of right now I can only state a few things.

1. We are lucky and extremely grateful and are going to help and support our community as much as possible through this catastrophe.

2.  Catskill Maison will open for business as soon as it’s safe for guests to visit and things begin to calm down in town and I will be updating the blog regularly to keep past and future guests abreast of developments on the rebuilding of Windham.

3.  Liz will continue to work with us and we will be assisting her and her family through this difficult time.

Please keep our towns in the Catskills in your prayers.

Hector cherry picking at Bohringer Fruit Farm

It’s finally that time of the year where the farmstands in the Catskills are up and running!  No more schlepping  to Whole Foods for produce from California and Chile, my strawberries are being picked by yours truly!  This past week has been the last week of cherry picking.  Cherry picking season is really special in the Catskill Mountains and Hudson Valley because the season is really short (about 2 weeks long).  At Catskill Maison Bed and Breakfast we pride ourselves on picking our own fruit.  Hector and I went to Bohringer Fruit Farm in Middleburgh to get Strawberries last week and found out it was day 1 of cherry picking season…so despite the constant threat of thunderstorms I insisted that we pick because a week later they would be gone forever.  Hector, not being a fan of cherries wasn’t a happy camper about this excursion, but being the supportive boyfriend that he is, he caved into my desire to pick and rolled up his sleeves.

So the Brooklyn boy and I picked for about 3 hours and got 16 quarts of cherries!  AND Hector who thought that cherries were nasty and bitter ate almost as many as he picked!  Rule of thumb (and I know I preach this all the time)…local farm produce tastes VERY different from that stuff you get in the supermarket.

The Greenmarkets in NYC are chock full of local produce right now as well as town farmers markets in Westchester, LI, and NJ!  Head to your neighborhood market and support the local farmers.

However, this year I found it interesting that Groupon did a special for Mountain Jam, which makes me wonder if Mountain Jam is trying to reach out to a broader spectrum of guests.  It would be wonderful if the word got out that people can enjoy a great concert and unwind at a really nice and cozy and relaxing place in the Catskills, therefore making a relaxing weekend getaway with the bonus of hearing some great music.  So for those of you reading this, if you or someone you know loves to go to concerts but would rather not “rough it”…we would love to have you stay with us at Catskill Maison Bed and Breakfast, as we are only 8 miles from Hunter.

Goat Phall Brick Lane Curry House

empty bowl of Phall

Last week I went with my friend Eva (who came for moral support) to Brick Lane Curry House on Curry Row  (6th st) for the sole purpose of taking the infamous Phall Challenge, supposedly the hottest curry in the world!  As you can see by the pictures I won the challenge (this was the same challenge that Adam Richman did on Man vs. Food), but boy did I suffer!  First of all I thought that rice and naan and dal would help…NOT!  Ok well the rice helped with the meat (I chose goat because I thought that the bones would enable me to not have to get through as much meat as other choices) but the naan was a hindrance and the dal was irrelevant.  What helped was mango lassi and raita (lots of it).  It wasn’t the meat that was brutal it was the sauce.  I got through the meat in less than 10 minutes with barely breaking a sweat, yes it was hot but very manageable.  But in order to win the challenge I had to eat all of the sauce.  BRUTAL!!!!  This made my homemade habanero hotsauce that I serve at Catskill Maison Bed and Breakfast seem like ketchup!  About half way through the sauce I realized I was in big trouble, my nose was runing, I was sweating like a suckling pig and my stomach felt like the seventh circle of hell in Dante’s Inferno!  So I started taking tablespoons full of sauce with half the tablespoon dipped in raita to cool it off and I was sucking down those mango lassi’s like I was in a desert.  Problem was that all the liquids were making me full, and the lassi’s were really really thick.  No matter how I tried to dilute those lassis it was like drinking a stream of lead!  After 3 mango lassi’s and a container of raita I managed to get down all of the sauce, but right after that my stomach churned and I raced to the bathroom and the rest was history…(I will spare the TMI gory details but you can insert your imagination here).  After some pepcid AC (courtesy of my awesome boyfriend Hector who was afraid that it was going to be a long and painful night for him, if he didn’t do an intervention for me to be well) I fully recovered from the experience.

Long and short of it, the trick is to get a mango lassi diluted before it comes to the table with 1/3 water, and to use raita, not to fill on bread at all and leave the dal in the kitchen.  I finished the dish and will be on the “wall of fame” in short order, but ask whether I’d do it again?  Not a snowballs chance in hell!